Casualties

I don't look at the faces anymore. I can fly so far above them that it doesn't seem to matter; and anyway, it's all for the best, right? All for the best. They ask me to help. It used to make me uncomfortable, the rubble left behind each time the city needed defending. I tried to reduce the damages, but fire is hard to restrain. Inevitably, whenever I blasted another villain out of the sky, the flames would catch to a nearby building. Something would explode, or collapse, or burn to the ground. Afterwards, I would stare at the piles of debris and smoke, the piercing ambulance sirens ringing in my ears, and wonder just how many lives I’d actually saved. But I can’t worry about that, can I? They ask me to help.

I grow to love the smell of fire. I revel in the thrill of being resiliently alive, surrounded by death and destruction. I am invincible, skyscrapers above the crowds of fragile people with fragile lives that are so easily broken.

They stop asking me to help.